*In the short time we've been up, we've apparently inspired another music blog! Check out Jake's smooth atonal sound blog over at Wordpress. His first entry is The Dead Symphony, or, the Orchestral Tribute to the Grateful Dead. He takes Matt's post on Lee Johnson's work as a jumping off point for some probing insights into the issues facing a composer/arranger who wishes to capture the spirit of non-classical music in an orchestral, through-composed medium. He's also got an enthusiastic entry up on Kaija Saariaho, a must-read for anyone interested in the possibilities of orchestral color and form in the 21st century. Saariaho, as far as I'm aware, hasn't tackled the genre of the symphony (yet) -- our blog's definite loss! But until she does, we still have plenty of great, unjustly obscure Finnish symphony composers other than Sibelius to introduce here. We look forward to seeing where Jake, our comrade-in-Lebowski-references, takes his blog, so swing by smooth atonal sound today!
*Head on over to Classical Music Library, whose biweekly free recording is an unsung symphony for sure, Sir Hubert Parry's Third Symphony in C! A vigorous, enjoyable work, with a surprisingly haunting slow movement. Give it a listen and see if you think it is deserving of the moniker "English Symphony."
*So you wanna be Beethoven? Interested in writing the Great 21st Century Symphony? Wikihow, that indispensable web resource for completely non-authoritative advice on everything from the life-changing to the unimaginably banal, has just what you need: How to write a symphony! But, heed the wiki authors' warning: "Writing music can be very time consuming. It can often be very frustrating as well." We offer a warning as well -- if you're truly in the process of composing a symphony, you'll probably find the above internet advice about as useful as this.
*Stay tuned for a new entry this week from Frank on Howard Hanson's Sixth!
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